BRYAN HEARTAWARE
Awareness lets AJ stand out in the crowd
AJ Matthies (6014) used his HeartAware results as motivation to change his lifestyle. He ran in the Good Life Halfsy in 2018 and the next year finished the Lincoln Half Marathon!
AJ
Matthies wasn’t planning on becoming a long-distance runner as an adult. He had played soccer and football in high school but, like so many of us, once he started a career, he didn’t make exercise a priority. In December of 2017, AJ participated in the HeartAware screening program through Bryan Health. His employer, redthread creative advertising, had invited Judy Arnold, RN, to meet with its employees for a free screening in the company’s Haymarket office. Judy, who coordinates the Early Detection Center at Bryan, walked them through the 30-minute screening process. At the end, participants were given a “heart age” to help them gauge their heart health. AJ was 26 when he took the screening — but his heart age was 32. AJ says, “My numbers weren’t ideal, and I felt it was time to start setting some goals.” He considered his options and
8 Spring 2020
noticed what other friends had done to be successful. He decided to sign up for a half marathon. “The most I’d ever run before was a mile or two,” he says. “Half a marathon seemed insurmountable, but I knew I needed to do something where I really had to push myself. If it was any shorter, I don’t know that I would have worked as hard for it.” With his busy work schedule, finding time to train wasn’t always easy. He made it a priority, and he said his work team has been supportive of his goals. He was able to work in runs by flexing his schedule, and co-workers who also ran offered him encouragement and advice. AJ’s hard work paid off. On October 28, 2018, he ran the Good Life Halfsy in Lincoln. “I finished, and I thought, ‘I can’t believe I signed up for that,’” he recalls. “Everybody has these stories of it feeling amazing to participate, but honestly, for me that didn’t
feel great,” he says with a laugh. A few weeks after AJ completed the Good Life Halfsy, Judy returned to redthread to do their annual HeartAware screening. When AJ got his results, he was happily surprised to see that despite being a year older, he had dropped his heart age to 31. Judy applauds AJ for taking the information he received through the screening and using it to make improvements to his health. “So many people think heart fitness isn’t important when you’re young, but it is,” Judy says. “By the time you get to be 50 or 60 years old, sometimes it’s harder to change. AJ recognized that maybe things weren’t going in the right direction and realized that if he continues on the same path, things may not be all that great when he gets older. He was very proactive in taking that information and making some positive changes.”
